SEVENTY YEARS AGO, the sea gave Jameson a signet ring. It was made of pure gold, strong and well crafted with a pearl pressed into the flat metal. But before the sea gave her blessing, Jameson met a human girl. A child—nothing past the age of ten, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright as she stumbled upon a spear embedded in the side of his tail. The men who'd hunted him down were long gone by now but his bite marks remained gouged into their faces. He hoped that the wounds would weep.
She had gasped, small legs kicking up sand as she stood a few feet away on the shore, her nightdress dipping into the water. The sun was almost setting as it melted into the horizon. Jameson hissed in pain and writhed on the sandy banks, the raw instinct to survive ripping sounds of agony from his mouth, muffled by how the waves crashed into the rocks. To feel this helpless was uncommon for Jameson, to feel this unhinged from life. He supposed he was more undone by the fear coursing through his veins rather than the human staring at him from a few paces away.
The child was plump with hair the color of dried seaweed, fingers gripping into her leg. Jameson's nose crinkled with distaste, the stench of human wafting into his nose and making him retch. Whether it was the girl herself or the blue blood pouring out of him, he wasn't too certain. All Jameson knew was the consuming sensation of pain and the need to reach the water. He couldn't give a damn about whether or not she screamed—
"Are you hurt?" Her voice sounded like bells, made of tin and silvery as it ran down the junction of his neck. Jameson began to claw his way towards the shore, but it was ten meters too far and he was growing exponentially weaker, his tail growing stiff without the sea. His gills flared. Even though Jameson could technically breathe above land, he was so accustomed to the water that he felt like he was running out of oxygen, chest heaving and shoulders shaking as he inched forward like a newly hatched turtle.
The girl ran over to him and knelt down. It was then that he noticed the tears in her dress, the smear of gunpowder on the edge of the cloth. Jameson closed his eyes and gritted his teeth; he willed the sting of pain away and the roiling nausea that accompanied it. Her hands hovered around the wooden rod piercing his body, like she wanted to pull it out but knew otherwise.
Jameson went on the defense.
"Child," he snarled, feeling the sand collapse between his fingers as he used whatever strength he had left to shout. The acidic-like taste of human fear filled his nose. "Run away."
Jameson didn't kill children. He still had some part of his humanity left to abide by that one rule.
Instead, the girl came closer, wide-eyed and glistening with curiosity, the sweet stench of power making him turn his head to the side. He wanted to retch. The sea was too far, too out of reach for the water to heal him. He had lived for too many years to count. Maybe Jameson's infinite time had finally reached its end—and how ironic, he thought, that it started and ended with humanity.
"Are you bleeding?" She nibbled her bottom lip, worrying it between gap-filled teeth.
He glared. The pain knocked the wind out of him so much that his words were a wheeze. "Do you disobey so easily?"
She knelt next to his head, dark hair falling into her eyes and her white socks littered with clumps of seaweed. He wondered why she hadn't questioned his tail. "Why is your blood blue?"
The pain intensified, but Jameson was too paralyzed and weak to move. Giving up on saving himself and draining his energy even further, he fixed his gaze on the calmness of the waves breaking on the sand and the faint glow of moonlight. He began to feel dizzy. "You ask useless questions, human girl."
She frowned and pointed at his hands, the veins glowing. "I don't want you to die," she whispered, dark eyes watering. "I don't know why they wanted to hurt you so badly, but it's wrong."
"Some of us don't bleed the same color."
"I saw them driving away in a car, but they were hurt." She hiccups. "Is that why those men hurt you, then? Because they were afraid?"
"And are you not?" Jameson bared his teeth, sharp as a blade. "I have a tail and you walk on legs. My teeth can bite cleanly through your neck," he gritted out.
"My blood is red, and yours is blue," she said, picking up a seashell by her shoes and dusting it off before balancing it on the top of his hand. Jameson glared at her. "My hair is dark, and yours darkest. Should I hate you?"
"Maybe so," Jameson told her, interest dampening the pain. "Hate is an easy emotion to feel."
"It doesn't seem right." The little girl smiled, and Jameson's head fell still. "Just because you appear differently from me does not make you any less valuable."
He remained quiet as she reached over and pulled a piece of dry seaweed from his hair, the powdery scent of youth almost calming as Jameson hunched over with blood loss. It was either trust this human or die—there were no better alternatives. Whether she delivered him into another set of brutal hands or left him to dry out in the night, Jameson was dead both ways. He had nothing and everything to lose.
"How do I save you?" the girl asked, kneeling next to his head. "If you were human, you would probably be dead by now."
He let out a choked laugh, all humor dissolved. "Why should you try?"
She looked away, inky hair shining with youth as the girl looked at his wounds and winced once more. "My mother told me that the sea delivered me back to her when I was a babe. She also told me to return the favor if I had the chance."
"Humans and their superstitions," he said, closing his eyes as the pain took over. "The sea is kinder than you think. She does not hold debts over acts of mercy."."
Jameson growled when the girl took his hands and started pulling him forwards almost desperately, features scrunched in concentration as her heels dug into the sand. The wooden spear was lodged at the back of his tail. It hadn't pierced through the entire muscle yet, but Jameson still felt his flesh tearing, his vision flashing white as his nerves screamed. He screamed, too.
"They're coming," she whispered, eyes so wide that he stiffened. "I hear them from above the cliff. Can you make it to the water? Will it heal you?"
He hissed. When the girl flinched, he almost felt something like regret in his chest. "It is too late. They have lodged their weapon in my body, and it's only inevitable that they retrieve it."
She kept dragging him, sweat breaking out along her hairline. Jameson felt conflicted, unnerved: he'd never had a human care about him in decades, especially someone so young who appeared unaffected by his existence.
"You are," Jameson said slowly, putting his efforts into dragging his body across the sand while she held his hands, "surprisingly strong for your age, human girl."
"My name is Mara." The feeling of her skin on his completed something he wasn't searching for, the paleness of his hands striking compared to the softness of her own.
Jameson frowned as he felt another trickle of blood run down his tail from the movement. "You name is sacred," he told her. "Do not give it out freely."
She nodded, but he knew she knew not what he meant. They were almost to the shore now—around five meters. Jameson could almost taste the salt on his tongue, the shock of coldness that winter brought to the currents. "Where are your parents, child?"
Her hands wrapped around his wrist and tugged harshly, completely ignoring his yell of pain. Determination set into her expression like a promise. Her eyes glistened with ambition as she tugged and tugged and tugged until Jameson was breathless and his fingertips could nearly touch the water if he stretched long enough.
He could've swam away, but instead, Jameson lingered. Turned his gaze upon this child and marveled at her existence.
"My father is one of the men who hurt you," she explained. Her words were quiet. "He does not like things he cannot understand. And my mother perished during childbirth. They drowned her body after I was born."
Jameson felt his fangs extend. "Would you like me to kill him in return?"
She looked away, silent for a few minutes before shaking her head. "I'm sorry that you're hurt," Mara said. "Does the water truly heal you like you said it would?"
But there was something else that bothered Jameson even as he dipped his hand into the shore and let the girl roll him into the water, gills flaring with relief and tail stitching itself up with a flash of light and heat. There was something else that bothered him even as he tossed the remains of the spear against a rock and watched it shatter. There was something else that bothered him even as he looked at the girl and saw her smile softly, sadly.
"Yes." Jameson sunk his head beneath the waves and emerged. "You have saved me."
"You were quiet heavy to drag. Is your kind always this difficult?"
Cold amusement flickered in his eyes. The sounds from above the cliff grew louder now: car engines, men shouting, dogs barking. Jameson opened his mouth to speak but he didn't know what to say, how to give something in exchange—
Protect her. The voice of the sea shook his soul, made it rattle inside of his chest. Jameson gasped.
"Are you alright?" The girl took a step into the water and stopped as Jameson threw out a hand in warning. The girl stopped in her tracks, obeying him.
I do not make empty promises, Jameson replied. Perhaps he did not want to deal with what would happen if the girl died, too. Perhaps he did not want to admit that this was the longest conversation he'd held with a human in a long, long time.
You do not understand what I say, the sea said. You are bound by soul.
Jameson shook his head. The only way I would bind us together is by bargain.
Then make one.
"Are you still in pain?" she asked again. Mara clutched her hands together and it was only then that Jameson realized that tears ran down her face.
"Why do you cry?" he asked, voice low. "You hardly know me."
The girl began to bawl, and he thought it was the first time that she showed her age. Jameson didn't know how to console her, so instead he watched and willed the water to wrap around her ankles in misty droplets. Her cheeks flushed, pinkness running up and down her neck, dark hair swinging in damp strands as it framed her face.
He frowned. "Human."
"I—I don't want you to leave. I want you to be my friend."
Power surged through him, alive and bright with vigor, its heat rumbling through his bloodstream. Behind him, Jameson's tail flicked forwards and backwards, and he felt the gravity of the situation weigh on his shoulders. The men were coming closer now. Shouting rang from the hills like bullets.
Jameson hated humans. They were murderers and stuffed to the brim with hypocrisy. He never hated anything more. But this one—Mara—he couldn't bring himself to despise.
Then make one, the sea repeated again. Now.
He reached out a hand and held his palm up, making the water crawling up Mara's legs leave to create a flower, the petals made of shifting droplets that made her smile. "Child," he asked, "would you like to make a bargain?"
She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes. "No?" Mara said, and Jameson found himself slightly amused. "Do I have to make a deal to visit you?"
"My kind does not accept favors," Jameson told her. It was a scene of fantasy: he, the siren, healing himself in the water and her, the human, standing on the sand and wondering when she would see him again. Her friend. "I consider them quite burdensome to owe someone a debt, no matter how it was intended."
"Alright."
Jameson glanced up, watching their torches of fire travel down the cliffside. "A life for a life," he said, listening to the sea speak to him. "That is how my debt is owed."
Mara's dark hair stuck to her cheekbones. "I saved your life?" she asked him.
"You have hidden strength in your body, daywalker. Do not doubt yourself." Jameson flipped his hand over and tapped her nose. "Now—like I said. A life for a life. Whose will it be?"
She thought for a second, then a minute, then two. Jameson looked at her gentle features. Mara had a mole beneath her mouth, and her eyes were lined with black lashes, midnight dripping onto her hair. The girl was filled with mortal determination. "May it be anyone of my choosing?"
"Anyone."
Mara tapped her lip and said: "Then let it be the person I cherish most in my life."
Jameson raised his eyebrows, shoulders stiffening as the men searched the beach even though they were too hidden to be noticed. "How interesting," he crooned gently. "Is it not your own life? That's what most people would say."
She shrugged. "You will have to discover who I love most, then," Mara said. "Will I see you again?"
"Likely not. It is dangerous for both you and myself. It's best if you forget about me and continue on living."
Her head hung in defeat. "Will you remember me?"
Jameson's chest ached in an unfamiliar way, and he remembered what the sea told him. You are bound by soul. "I collect treasure," he told her. "And I need to seal our bargain. Do you carry anything?"
Mara frowned. "No," said. "You don't look like you're a treasure-hunter. I thought they would look more interesting."
He clicked his tongue. "You mock me."
"I think you're quite mockable."
Jameson let out a light laugh, his throat dry but healing as his blue blood dissolved with the ocean's currents. When he opened his mouth to speak again, the sea interrupted his thoughts.
Underneath the girl's feet lies a ring, the sea said. It is yours. Seal the bargain and be gone quickly—danger approaches.
With vigor, Jameson maneuvered Mara's tiny body to the side and dug into the sand like a crab, sticky sand coating his fingers as he pulled out a piece of gold and pearl. It was ancient and beautiful: an artifact worthy of death, of life. The band was too large for her fingers but Jameson dropped it into her palms for her sake anyway, watching with curiosity as Mara smiled and the tears dried on her cheekbones.
"Here," he said. "Repeat after me."
The words flew out of his mouth like an enchantment, his power rumbling from deep within. The sea was pleased with him. Jameson could feel her gentleness biting at his ankles, her satisfaction when Mara leaned into his touch and interlocked their fingers so the bond could be solidified.
"I, Mara Nolsen," she swore, "saved a siren's life in exchange for the protection of the one I love most. May the sea grant us her blessing and live beyond her years."
The men grew closer, and Jameson growled as he smelled Mara's fear, sour and crass. Between their interlocked hands, the ring grew hot, nearly burning his skin as his magic poured into the metal itself; the pearl shone dramatically and he watched as the sea's magic glazed the jewelry like a fresh coat of paint. Jameson, somewhere inside of him, wanted to stay.
"Must you go?" she asked, tears welling at the bottom of her eyes once more. "I've only once found you."
You are bound by soul.
But Jameson was relatively young and equally reckless, and he cared not for the sorrow pooling in his stomach as he began to swim away with the promise band spanning across his index finger. The ring felt heavy on his hand: a permanent reminder of this night, of Mara.
"Run away now," Jameson told her, pointing to the men approaching. "Or else they will question you. And if your father touches you, I will drown his boat at sea. And then I will kill all of his men."
Mara shot him a smile. "Please tell me your name."
The water felt like a blessing against his closed wounds. "Nightsinger," Jameson replied, drifting away from the shoreline. "I hope you grow up kindly, Mara Nolsen. Thank you for your kindness. It will not be forgotten."
She stepped into the water, wading until she was waist deep and he yelled at her to stop. "Remember your promise," Mara told him, sniffling. "You were incredibly heavy for me to drag, but I will do it again if you end up hurt once more."
He grinned as a sign of thanks, tail flipping out of the water to propel him forwards to his pod. "Goodbye, little human. May we never meet again."
Jameson swam away until he left that entire coast behind.
The ring glowed, but he glowed brighter.
***
Mara Nolsen lived a brief life. When she passed, Jameson's emotions sent a tsunami to the coast on which she was born as a punishment for her death. It tore through the homes of those who had mocked her funeral, saying it was only right as the daughter of the town's drunkard.
When their bodies washed further into the ocean, Jameson ate their flesh. It was rotten and waterlogged, but he broke their bones and licked them clean. He was ravenous. Wicked and wild.
They say she died from heartache after her husband passed. That she would just sit on her dock and swing her legs back and forth and back, a bottle brimming with sadness. Jameson would feel her presence even if she stepped foot on the shore. The ring grew warm and he felt his body being tugged back to where she was located.
And he swam to her. No matter where he was, he swam, and he stayed until she went back home.
Jameson kept watch over her ever since she delivered him back to the ocean. He never acknowledged his presence, but he was there. He listened. He heard her stories, the way she would ramble about her school days, her desires and cries for her father to recover. Jameson saw her, too. He saw her dark hair grow out, then cut short in her twenties, then in a long tangle she had on her fiftieth birthday. He noticed the day her ring finger wore a diamond, the month her stomach swelled with child, the year her eyes began to wrinkle at the corners. Jameson calmed the waters whenever she and her child greeted the sea, and he had sent schools of fish to tickle the child's ankles until she too was shrieking in delight and he found himself smiling. She had only traveled by boat once, but Jameson swam underneath it to guarantee safe passage.
He didn't understand his emotions. Couldn't differentiate affection from bondate from a strict keeping of a promise. Jameson had never felt the bond fully snap into place—he began to wonder who the girl could have been thinking about when she'd told him to protect the person she treasured most. It was not their bargain that drew him to keep watch over Mara, but perhaps it was curiosity. Who, then, could Jameson be bound to guard?
You are bound by soul, the sea told him. He recanted those words every time he looked at his golden ring.
Mara Nolsen lived a brief life. When she died, a part of Jameson died too.
What could he do when a piece of his soul was missing?
He could feel hatred. It was an emotion that came easily, after all.
***
"Don't you want to be free of me?" Jameson extends his hand to the girl with the hair as white as snow, with cheeks that are flushed with the deepest shade of anger. Behind her, the sun begins to bleed into the ocean. It melts into the water with a flourish, and she trembles with fear, or rage, or maybe both. He beholds the sight of the earth and sky's kiss with indifference.
From where he sways back and forth in the sea, Jameson tilts his head upwards to see Iris staring down at him. Jameson smells her hesitation before she even realizes she takes a step backwards. He hears the fast, wet beat of her heartbeat. The other human that traveled with her lays flat on the deck, eyes rolled back into her head and chest moving with deep breaths: unconscious, but not dead, not entirely. He watches, darkly amused, as Iris kneels down and checks her companion's vitals again to make sure that Jameson hadn't killed her. When her fingers wrap around the other's wrist, Jameson clicks his tongue in mock offense, inhaling a lungful of salt breeze. It tickles his throat as it works its way down.
How ridiculous for Iris to think that he had murdered her friend. As if he would waste his energy in such a thrilless way. His expression shifts from a chilled demeanor to something sharper.
A mirthless grin finds its way to Jameson's face as he morphs into a predator, eyes turning downwards and pupils dilating with the need to chase, to hunt. His fingers urge to draw himself to the girl, but he holds back, refusing to give into the softness of human flesh. How beautiful the curve of their throats look, how irresistible it is when their skin is rubbed raw. "How do I know I can trust you?" Iris asks him, her words rushed in tempo. Her eyebrows draw together as she glances back to her sleeping companion, the woman's body twitching. Humans are terribly interesting. Such loyal creatures, but simultaneously so capable of betrayal that Jameson cares not about things like compassion and forgiveness and empathy.
"You can't." Jameson swims closer, and his tail glints silver and violet underneath the water. "It's part of the thrill. Jump—I will catch you."
Iris hesitates again and her eyes widen. He can see it in the slight shake of her knees, the way her breath hitches, the tiniest strain of her vision. Her soul morphs into something viscous and slow, like the dripping of honey. He wonders if her blood would taste like the sweetest bottle of wine. A large part of him takes pride in being a monster with sharp teeth and a powerful tail. They say he was created before the legends of the sea's horrors stirred the mainland. They say many things, but Jameson takes delight in how each following tale gets more vile and wondrously strange.
"How do I know you won't kill me?"
He rolls his eyes and uses his already-extended hand to point to her own. "My ring is still sitting on your finger, little human. The sea would prefer that I keep you alive if I intend to get it back." His voice is harsher now, but still direct in expressing his wishes.
Iris smells like fear, yes, but also a sparkling curiosity that smears onto his skin like perfume. He views her as a mortal obstacle to conquer before reaching his goal. "The last time I tried to take it off was a year ago," she says. "I got so sick I almost landed myself in the hospital." Iris looks away, lashes long against her cheeks. The fear in her soul fades to a standstill. "I don't want to feel that way again. If I give it back, you have to promise I won't get harmed."
"Did it feel like death?" Jameson croons, his tone deep and dark and brutal. "Have you grown to become so dependent upon my power, weakling?" When he looks at the human, he thinks about someone he met a long, long time ago, but Jameson pushes the image out of his head and ignores the foreign pang inside of his chest. He crushes it like another bone. "I promise you no harm if you just take my hand. Or I'll force you and remove your memories, and you'll hate me for it."
He wills the water to defy gravity, two twin waves reaching up for her ankles as Iris gasps and her gaze doesn't know whether to be in awe or to be repulsed. It is fantasy come to life: a sight of otherworldliness, of foreign material. Water listens to his voice. It obeys his will by the blessing of the sea. When his anger rises, so do the storms; when his emotions flatline, the breeze dies and the boats fail to move. Jameson approaches closer. He listens to the currents and the fantastical music that it creates. "What will it be?"
"If I jump," Iris says fiercely, "swear that you won't hurt Cam. And swear that I'll be okay."
Jameson nods. "On the sea, I swear it. Now come."
With a few seconds of delay, he watches with intense concentration as Iris takes another step forwards, scrunches her eyes shut, and falls into the ocean, except—
Except she doesn't. Jameson catches her indeed as the twin waves envelop her body, wrapping around her legs, and bring Iris directly to him as time begins to blur. They're deep enough in the ocean that he knows she wouldn't be able to stand, and she'd tire herself out if he didn't hold onto her. Iris lets out a breathless scream, body fighting at first but relaxing a few seconds after, and inevitably watches in wonder as the water holds her weight and submerges her gently into the ocean, her wetsuit darkening as it dampens. How unpredictable for the nightsinger to lure the daywalker into his territory with nothing other than pretty words. He's almost offended he didn't have to sing.
Jameson's powers are strong enough that he can make Iris's body stand in the water without her kicking her legs. His powers are strong enough that he can make Iris forget her memories inside the ocean, can kill her with one powerful bite of his jaw. But just when he begins to enchant her small, lithe human body to survive the strong currents, Iris clings onto him before he can finish. Like a newborn introduced to life, she wraps her arms around his neck and presses her own body to the length of his own, heartbeat as quick as a hummingbird's wings when she exhales sharply. Her legs brush against his tail, causing nerve endings to fire catastrophically. She's warm, pliable. Jameson stiffens underneath such close contact and hisses.
"Humans have no manners," he snaps. "Unhand me."
"I can't." Iris trembles, her right hand seemingly careful to avoid his gills. "Did you know you glitter? When the sun hits your neck, you look like a mermaid and a disco ball had a baby."
Jameson has half a thought to push her away and watch her drown. He tells her as much. "I will drown you."
Iris's hair looks like melted snow now, softly drifting across the water as he realizes how much smaller she is than him. Her shoulders are lean, collarbones jutting out with an almost angular precision. Jameson wonders how tight he could hold her fingers for them to snap where they're splayed out across his upper back.
He is not used to delicate, fragile things. Jameson takes pleasure in operating on his hunger and his instincts. He is not used to human girls whose souls are too bright and whose hair makes him think about the color of pearls. And he can smell her scent—blossoms, he thinks, and smoke and salt from the water. It's maddening, and he hates it.
"Shit," Iris curses, the human instinct to simply survive seeping out of her pores and clogging his senses. "How are you not freezing? I can't feel my toes."
Jameson could pull her away and continue with his enchantment, but he doesn't. He doesn't think about why, just extends his fangs to scare her. When she gets a full glimpse of his face, it looks like she remembers what she's clinging onto and quiets down a bit, countenance blank. "It seems you have a habit of clinging onto me."
"You told me to jump!"
"My patience was growing thin. You would have been waiting there forever had I not forced you inside."
Iris looks at him, and Jameson can see that her eyelashes are just as white as the head on her hair. She really is pretty: a thing to be admired, stowed and collected, prized. She's the type of temptation that makes him want to have a taste. "Don't eat me," Iris warns, tone hardening. "I had a stale pretzel for dinner yesterday. Honestly, I don't think I'd taste the best out of your vast selection of human chum."
He peels one of her arms off of him and grimaces when she flails. "My tastes are rather refined, little human. And you'd do me no favors if you died right now."
Iris's teeth begin to chatter. "It's cold," she whispers. "It's cold, and I'm scared, and you look like you want to kill me."
He blinks before déjà vu sets in. Jameson remembers carrying her, cradling her head to his chest as the sea instructed him to keep her alive; her life had flickered dangerously, and her skin was cold as his own. With one hand wrapped around her waist, Jameson heats up the water like he did those same four years ago. The memories start to come back.
He hears her sigh in relief before her brows draw together in concern. "Won't this kill the wildlife?" she asks him. "The water temperature is too hot for them to survive."
The feeling of shock is not a common one: Jameson, surprised, keeps his gaze hard as he responds, "I banished the sealife a mile out before swimming here to collect you. Are you truly concerned for their survival?" he asks, and from where Iris's hands clutch his shoulders, he tilts his head as she nods. "So caring," Jameson quips. "Let me see your hand."
"Wait." Iris glances away. "Why did you save me that night? I—I can't remember everything, but I remember you. And I remember coming back to the shore."
Truth be told, Jameson isn't entirely sure either. He knows the sea is to be obeyed at all times, and so he followed suit. But as much as he would like to figure it out, he can't connect Iris to the ring and the sea. Everything remains stuck with too many gaps between them.
Instead, he suffices for the safe response. "You were not a murderer on that yacht, but your friends were. The sea saw, and she took mercy."
"They weren't my friends." Iris turns to ice.
"Acquaintances, then. Humans are all filth to me. Doesn't matter where I encounter them."
She frowns. He didn't realize it before, but Iris's legs are locked around his waist, clearly avoiding where flesh meets tail. This way, she uses his strength to flow to her own body. Jameson can feel the warmth pulsating from her vital points, and he becomes hyper aware of the muscles of her calves, the slimness of her ankles that are so different from his own. He finds them hideous. "But that still doesn't explain why your ring is on my finger."
"Exactly," Jameson says, huffing. "So before I eat you, let me see your hand."
Iris grumbles as she offers it to him. Her fingers are long and slim, skin white and blue veins almost visible with his vision. The sight of the signet ring soothes whatever unsettling feelings he had grappled with before; he yearns for it, needs to touch the gold band as a reminder that it's not lost. Jameson is possessive by nature. This he knows.
"Here," Iris says. "How do I give it back without dying?"
He tilts his head again, ignoring the way her hands feel on his skin. It's been decades since someone had touched him like this: aware and conscious and entirely too close for his preference. Jameson grits his sharp teeth. "For some reason, the sea tied my soul to that ring when I was forced to give it to you," he explains. "My kind operates on bargains. If you hand me the ring, I will swear on the sea to do anything of your desire, and any bond between us will be nullified."
She nods slowly. "So it's an exchange."
"Precisely."
Iris's mouth parts. "I carry your soul? Isn't that too romantic? We've only just met."
He sends her a wicked grin. "You run your mouth too much, little human."
"I mean," Iris says, "I don't understand what you're saying. Why me? There are plenty of people that take yachts out to sea that don't kill marine animals. All of my coworkers are against pollution and protecting the ocean." She points to Cam. "So why me?"
He bursts. "If I knew," Jameson snarls, "we wouldn't be here, would we?"
"Just—just take the ring," she says. "We need a bargain, then."
He nods. "What would you like in exchange?" Jameson asks harshly. "Anything, anyone. If you name it, it is yours."
When she stares at him, he feels the weight of her thoughts like a pressing down on his shoulders. Firm and heavy. Jameson's irritation grows, and he hates the girl's inquisitive thoughts and the way her heartbeat slows down against his chest. She should be terrified of the apex predator that holds onto her. She should be swimming for the shore.
"What does this ring mean to you?" Iris asks. "There must be a reason why you're claiming to give me anything I just want just to wear this again on your finger. Just because I'm human doesn't make me clueless."
"It reminds me of past times," is all Jameson says. "A keepsake, if you will. Tell me what you want."
She pauses. When she speaks again, Iris's voice is soft, quietly defeated but strong enough to be heard. "I want to fall asleep."
He pulls back in distaste. His tongue curls. "What?"
"I can't sleep. I haven't been able to sleep well since I was a child." She grits her teeth. "If I could just have—if I could just sleep like a normal person, I'll be happy. I don't need anything more."
Jameson would ask what she dreams about, but he finds that he doesn't care enough. "Most people ask for money," he says. "Or power, or love, or for success. They ask for things that shine with idolatry."
She grumbles. "They could probably get a decent night's rest, then."
"Are you sure that this is what you want?"
"Yes," she confirms. "It is."
He doesn't know what to make of her: of this human in his arms, the one with white hair and long legs. "Then repeat after me." Jameson says the necessary words and watches her expression morph into intense concentration. "Don't miss a single word I say, or else it might not work." The thrill of bargaining bubbles inside of his chest like a hot spring, overflowing with slyness and anticipation. He thinks it tastes of victory.
She inhales and begins. "I, Iris Monroe, give back Jameson's ring in exchange for everlasting nights without nightmares. May the sea grant us her blessing and live beyond her years."
When she finishes, they both turn to look downwards at Iris's hand. The ring is still intact, the gold nearly glowing as the sun begins to set. Its light changes Iris's hair to a shade of gloss, her head almost a halo. Jameson rips his gaze away.
It feels like hours pass.
"I feel like something was supposed to happen," Iris says.
"You said the words wrong."
"No, I didn't. Stop making shit up."
He glares at her, gaze hard. "You appear awfully brave for someone who was shaking in the water twenty minutes ago. If I let you go now, you'd sink to your death with no one available to help you. It'd be wise if you stopped trying to test my kindness"
"I'm out in the middle of the ocean with a boy who has a tail." Iris scoffs. "Kindness? Do you need a dictionary?"
"I'm a siren."
She shudders. "And how long have you been a siren?"
"I am ageless," Jameon says. His voice is low and husky as it brushes across her skin, running horizontally across her jugular. "I existed from the start of time, and I assume I'll exist at the end of it as well."
"You know," Iris says, "most people would just say something like 'I'm twenty-three.' You look like you could get carded at the bar. Can you sing me to sleep, fish boy?"
"Only to your death."
"You're useless, then. And get this ring off of me. If you want it so badly, then take it."
Jameson grabs her hand again. More gently this time, almost in reverence. When he slides it off, he feels like air is escaping his lungs, and he chokes on fate itself. He gasps in pain. Heat flashes down his torso in a branding wave of sensation, wrapping around his lungs like it's a lasso and he can't run away. Jameson doesn't have legs, but he feels like he's falling. Stumbling.
"Hey," Iris says, tone turning urgent. "Jameson. Are you alright?"
Black hair. A young girl. Sharp shooting pain in his tail. Are you alright?
Jameson is not alright. He is not okay. He's not sure he's ever been.
But the sea speaks while the pain still eats away at his body. Jameson's tail goes limp but his arms still cage themselves around Iris's waist to propel her upwards so she can still breathe.
Do you not know anything by now? The sea asks him, and Jameson gasps as the ancient voice brands into his spine. Everything is molten and dripping with pain. His vision flickers with discolored spots. She is what you have been living for. She is the reason that the ring is no longer yours.
Jameson closes his eyes. Do not tell me what it is that I am thinking, he says. It feels like he's been stabbed all over again.
She responds with reverence. The person Mara Nolsen loved most. It is her. Her grandaughter.
Her granddaughter, Iris Monroe. And now Jameson must protect her.
When he looks at Iris, at her bone white hair and her blue eyes, he begins to laugh.
***
author's note: this was 7k words and i think my brain is deep fried. thank you for reading! jameson is, as always, a delightful bean who doesn't know how to talk to women. i always appreciate when you guys vote + comment. see you soon!